Why, I Wonder, Has Reggio Paid Such
Exceptional Attention To This Department Of Its Daily Life?
One did
not quite know whether to approve this frank exhibition of
carnivorous zeal; obviously something can be said
In its favour,
yet, on the other hand, a man who troubles himself with finer
scruples would perhaps choose not to be reminded of pole-axe and
butcher's knife, preferring that such things should shun the light
of day. It gave me, for the moment, an odd sense of having strayed
into the world of those romancers who forecast the future; a
slaughter-house of tasteful architecture, set in a grove of lemon
trees and date palms, suggested the dreamy ideal of some reformer
whose palate shrinks from vegetarianism. To my mind this had no
place amid the landscape which spread about me. It checked my
progress; I turned abruptly, to lose the impression as soon as
possible.
No such trouble has been taken to provide comely housing for the
collection of antiquities which the town possesses. The curator who
led me through the museum (of course I was the sole visitor)
lamented that it was only communal, the Italian Government not
having yet cared to take it under control; he was an enthusiast, and
spoke with feeling of the time and care he had spent upon these
precious relics - sedici anni di vita - sixteen years of life,
and, after all, who cared for them? There was a little library of
archaeological works, which contained two volumes only of the
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; who, asked the curator sadly,
would supply money to purchase the rest? Place had been found on the
walls for certain modern pictures of local interest. One represented
a pasture on the heights of Aspromonte, shepherds and their cattle
amid rich herbage, under a summer sky, with purple summits enclosing
them on every side; the other, also a Calabrian mountain scene, but
sternly grand in the light of storm; a dark tarn, a rushing torrent,
the lonely wilderness. Naming the painter, my despondent companion
shook his head, and sighed "Morto! Morto!"
Ere I left, the visitors' book was opened for my signature. Some
twenty pages only had been covered since the founding of the museum,
and most of the names were German. Fortunately, I glanced at the
beginning, and there, on the first page, was written "Francois
Lenormant, Membre de l'Institut de France" - the date, 1882. The
small, delicate character was very suggestive of the man as I
conceived him; to come upon his name thus unexpectedly gave me a
thrill of pleasure; it was like being brought of a sudden into the
very presence of him whose spirit had guided, instructed, borne me
delightful company throughout my wanderings. When I turned to the
curator, and spoke of this discovery, sympathy at once lighted up
his face. Yes, yes! He remembered the visit; he had the clearest
recollection of Lenormant - "un bravo giovane!" Thereupon, he
directed my attention to a little slip of paper pasted into the
inner cover of the book, on which were written in pencil a few Greek
letters; they were from the hand of Lenormant himself, who had taken
out his pencil to illustrate something he was saying about a Greek
inscription in the museum. Carefully had this scrap been preserved
by the good curator; his piety touched and delighted me.
I could have desired no happier incident for the close of my
journey; by lucky chance this visit to the museum had been postponed
till the last morning, and, as I idled through the afternoon about
the Via Plutino, my farewell mood was in full harmony with that in
which I had landed from Naples upon the Calabrian shore. So hard a
thing to catch and to retain, the mood corresponding perfectly to an
intellectual bias - hard, at all events, for him who cannot shape
his life as he will, and whom circumstance ever menaces with dreary
harassment. Alone and quiet, I heard the washing of the waves; I saw
the evening fall on cloud-wreathed Etna, the twinkling lights come
forth on Scylla and Charybdis; and, as I looked my last towards the
Ionian Sea, I wished it were mine to wander endlessly amid the
silence of the ancient world, to-day and all its sounds forgotten.
THE END.
End of By the Ionian Sea by George Gissing
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